A Prayer to Saint Raphael
by Harlequin Sequins
Summary: Guide of those who journey, by land or sea or air, consoler of the afflicted, and refuge of sinners, I beg of you...assist me in all my needs   and in all the sufferings of this life.


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* * *

_Glorious Archangel Saint Raphael, _  
_great prince of the heavenly court, _  
_you are illustrious _  
_for your gifts of wisdom and grace. _  
_You are a guide of those who journey _  
_by land or sea or air, _  
_consoler of the afflicted, _  
_and refuge of sinners. _  
_I beg you, _  
_assist me in all my needs _  
_and in all the sufferings of this life..._

* * *

She falls into him and realizes that there's more to this place than death. Than the fear. Than the screaming that pierces her youthful soul, claws its way through the beating topsoil and rests until she dreams, until she can't escape the immortal sound. He makes the darkness scatter. Mice beneath the pews.

They wear uniforms too. Like skins stitched together with patches of honor and symbols of glory. But these are not the devil in flesh, cruelty incarnate with big black boots that crush faces held captive by a scream. It should have haunted the ones who stole from them their freedom, but the echo was too late. These men heard them instead. It could be seen in their faces. Faces that felt empty when you grazed the surface with death's fingertips, but China's Great Wall could not bear to contain such turbulence. How could flesh withhold what even stone could not? They could feel the breeze of such a tempest searching through the cracks, for a new host to feed upon. Too swift to be born of a quiet afternoon in the apple orchard, where laughter was not merely a wistful yesterday and sunlight was not a curse, but a gift from God.

They swarm the gates of hell like angels rising from the dust, seraphic winged creatures with something cruel of a softer kind latching onto the heartstrings in their eyes. The song of pity plays on the air, tugs them to their knees, and their lives are frail shadows in their hands. For every soul there is a savior. Hers came in the form of a man that seemed merely a boy in many ways, and not just in the gentle light that played on the fragile shore of his eyes. She could see the fissures, but they are masked too deeply in kind words that do not belong to him, but to humanity itself, and it is hard to hear the sound of his heart breaking beneath the weight of the world.

A fire burns hot in her skin, embers of plague embedded deep in a body that dies too slowly, a spirit that holds too quickly to its cage of bone. The creature of vibrancy she once was and the derelict house of suffering she is now are reflected in the mirror of her flesh-haven's eyes.

She cannot decipher delusion from reality.

"You are my angel." Her conviction is strong for something so small, for such a little voice to hold; there can be no doubt that this is no earthly sanctuary to her. But it seems wrong as the words reach him, perhaps through a veil. "Have you come to take me home? To _shamayim?"_

If ever she saw beauty, she knows she has now seen the portrait of its face. Long, graceful features frame the dark windows of a soul not quite shy, but unwilling to impart anything more than a canvas upon which he paints his words. Kindness is there. Pity. Sparks of innocence that once outshone the stars, set envious fire to the sun, were as barren as a field of ashes now. But the ghost of memory still flits behind its own unmarked grave, searching for rest in the past. All it may find is pain. Pain masked by the guise of a bloodstained hero who has borne the task of guiding the dead home for far too long.

And all of this she sees in one glance. They say the eyes of a child can peel away the callus of the most remote of hearts. She must only decipher his.

"Hush, _cherie_," he croons, yielding as whispers of ribbon through malicious hands. She can almost sink softly into oblivion at such a sound. The edges of the void pool at her tiny bare feet. Years of outrunning death and skirting the precipice of an end not quite peaceful have left them tired. He turns, lowers his voice as if not to frighten her, but she is not afraid, even as the words steal past him and find her cradled in his arms. "Find Spina."

Another voice. "Gene…Gene, don't…this girl has suffered enough. Let her die in peace. Let her go."

The dark-eyed angel snaps. The stem of a dandelion torn in two, the resonation falling on feverish ears. "_**Spina. Now.**__"_

She reaches for his face and captures it in her hands. It is marble against glowing embers that will not seem to fade. "Please, angel, do not get angry. I have prayed this day would come. _Ima _is waiting for me. I can feel her now, _mal-ach_! Won't you take me home to her?"

The eyes that meet hers are a stormy sea. The tempest rolls in on gray-flecked wings. "But He has told me himself, little one…He wants you to stay. He wants you to hold on…if…if only just for a little while longer," he whispers like secret prayer, like the voice of her winged guardian who stole her from the nights that felt too hard against frail skin and gathered her into the promised light. It sounds just as she imagined. "He told me himself."

Her eyes brighten, but they are too quickly concealed by fever. "Oh, _mal-ach. _You have spoken to Elohim! King of Kings! _Mal-ach, _is he gentle? Is he kind?"

"Most gentle and most kind," he replies.

She gasps and in a whisper, declares, "_Elohim_ has sent his archangel to me?" Her eyes are wide, saucers beneath tea on a spring morning in the garden, where Eden has gone untouched by human hands. "If I say my evening prayers, Raphael, won't you take me home to _ima?_"

His cry is desperate as he turns from the glass figurine, splintering faster now in his useless hands. Everything he has in the world has been reduced to morphine and syrettes and bandages for mortal wounds. But this wound goes too deep for his healing hands to reach. "_Spina!"_

Murmurs in words he cannot understand. In tongues older than the sky, than the moon, than the earth that sifts beneath his feet. This place is a netherworld. A nest of suffering. Death visits every early grave with no care given to the face of innocence or age. He is numb. Perhaps there is no cure for such apathy. He is screaming now. Screaming. Perhaps someone will hear him, if he penetrates the shroud of helplessness that encases this breathing graveyard.

He tries. Tries to keep her from the hands of God that reach into her broken body, searching for the vibrant soul. Water trickles over the raven crown of her head, the curls of soot that spill over his knees like black water caught in a moonbeam. His fingers shake. They cry for mercy. Please. Please let me keep her here. Let her keep the life You have so given her. She is only a child…only a little girl.

God would not tarnish the work of His own hands_. _It was His guiding light, His divine will…He is the reason she now breathes.

The ancient prayer ends abruptly as he reaches for cloth – _cloth and water, keep the fever down . _He returns to his porcelain miracle, but it has shattered in his hands.

Only the pieces remain behind.

* * *

_mal-ach _- Hebrew for _'_angel_'. _Also used as 'messenger'.  
_ima - _Hebrew for mother, informal; akin to 'mama' or 'mommy'.  
_Elohim - _Hebrew for God.  
_shamayim - _Hebrew for 'the sky'. More commonly used as 'Heaven' or 'paradise'.


End file.
